Strategies
During your playthrough of OE3, you might find yourself becoming stuck on a particular level or boss. This page is here to help. see also the campaign and faction pages for more help. Overall strategies Some strategies work well throughout the game, but will require some tweaking for different civilizations. Some strategies work well for campaign missions, but not multiplayer; and some boss battle strategies will never work for anything else. *Rushing is the tactic of attacking as soon as you can without savingfor anything larger than a basic turret or medium ship. Usually this involves lots of fighters, freeze mod, furies, or swarms; however one does not need all or any of these to rush. one must take into account that lasers can take out indefinite swarms of fighters, and that unless you win early the enemy will win. *Turtling is the exact opposite of rushing. To turtle is to build mostly reactors, extractors, miners, or generators and defend. This is generally achieved through minimal spending with up to two turrets and maybe a shield or phalanx. It is good to remember that two autocannons and a shield can defend against up to two mediums and lots of fighters, leaving you with more time to save energy and minerals. This can also be called a capital rush as this is what you would probably be saving for, unless you want a TON of fighters just for fun. *Turret rushing was originally developed as a joke until it proved effective in campaign battles. The tactic involves copious use of constructors, phalanx or shields, and upgraded turrets (preferably a shielded autocannon). You are able to build up to an enemy's base and bombard their base with the strongest offense in the game, turrets. This is best used with turtling as it is also an expensive strategy. *Please add any strategies that you have found effective here. Basic Battles There are three types of battles: Dual, Skirmish, Flank, and Pincher *Duals are the most basic of battles. It consists of you and an enemy with equal energy and spacing. different civilizations require different strategies all of which apply here *Skirmishes are battles of you and two enemies which can and do fight each other. A very common strategy is to "lay low" and build on the opposite side facing your opponents. this will cause them to fight each other before getting close enough to fight you. *Flanks are battles where you and two enemies are laid out in a line with you on either the right or the left. the same strategy with skirmishes applies, however it is more common for you to half-fight the middle enemy as it builds towards you. *Pinchers are battles like flanks with you in the center. These are VERY hard. Most choose to skip these missions unless the reward is very great. Remember to have base defence on both sides with important things in the middle. Constructors are very useful here as you can build away. Bosses Bosses can be very difficult if played against the wrong way. A boss battle consists of you verses an enemy with a built in shield and higher armor main base, as well as a more difficult AI and a bigger build range. A very distinctive quality of these missions are the starting energy, 2000. Most bosses will win by having up to four capital ships and strong base defence. Turtling is very hard in boss missions as very few turrets can survive and destroy a capital ship. Rushing is also hard without freeze mod but again is possible. A common strategy is to rush capitals just as fast as they do. Remember, the AI never uses constructors, so use that to build more than he ever can. General Tips *Shields are the best upgrade as the add extra life, regeneration of life, immunity to acid, immunity to freeze, and can be a more effective defence against some types of amunition. *Furies and artillary are your friend against the infecting ciivilization. *Shield auxilaries and phalanx turrets increase the lifespan of a turret by 200% to 1000% *The tech "freeze rounds" and "supply" are VERY handy *miners are so much better than extractors.